Maria Emilia Castagliola: In Praise of Federico Garcia Lorca (Gulf Coast Museum of Art) is an ambitious collection of paintings, drawings and a few mixed-media objects, all expressing the Cuban-born Castagliola's passion for the masterful uniter of Spanish literary traditions. Along with her esoteric and distant literary sources, not an easy alliance for any artist, her work is also invested with the highly personal. At her best, this emotional impact survives the Lorcan touchstone.
Just what is that Lorcan touchstone? Why Lorca?
In an act of ultimate censorship, the playwright and poet Lorca (1898-1936) was murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, his body tossed into a field, never to be found. Without markers or gravesite, he lives through the words he was murdered for. Castagliola's own memories include fragments of his poetry filtering into a childhood spent in Cuba, before her 1961 exodus to Florida.
The artist re-encountered Lorca's writings during the early 1990s while planning an art project based on "blood letting" — remembering those who had been murdered for their words. "Poets give us words at a great price," Castagliola suggests. But despite her discovery, she chose instead to celebrate people rather than dwelling on tragedy. How prophetic her decision seems at this moment in history.
Nevertheless, good visual art functions without prior information, however fascinating or urgent it may be. The real test is not whether we recognize literary or personal revelations, but whether we're moved by the visual art itself. Picasso's "Guernica" responds to a specific historical moment while symbolizing universal ideas beyond the specific event. The challenge for Castagliola, or any artist, is embedding art objects with a spirit or power transcending the particular.
A longtime St. Petersburg resident, Castagliola came to art after a background in religion and social services. Her growing resume of national art venues includes her work in the Smithsonian Museum collection. All of this contributes to her status as one of the more thoughtful and respected Bay area artists.
Exploring a wide array of media, her early narrative canvases synthesized her Cuban roots with Catholic and Renaissance icons, but also straddled a fine line between universal symbols and the highly personal. "Offering to the Head of John the Baptist," in the Polk Museum of Art collection, is typical of the artist's early painting style. It's not only packed with curious symbolism but exudes a richness both in color palette and oil-paint surface. Demonstrating an affinity for historical and enigmatic storytelling, it also embodies the enduring Castagliola style — a penchant for ornate detail, repetition and self-portraiture. Subsequent to her 1993 Tampa Museum of Art solo exhibition, she moved toward installation and community-based projects, and, to this writer's very vocal chagrin, abandoned painting.
In the current exhibition — a major move back to painting — she favors single abstracted subjects: the graphic juggler ("Seven Hearts Have I"), the toreador symbolism in "Homage to Ignacio Sanchez Mejias" and "Saint Sebastian." "Homage" includes painted lacework, a skill few contemporary painters would dream of tackling. Her painted surfaces were once packed with decorative elements; they're now often found in her graphite drawings. Though I've always been drawn to her "loaded" canvases, I thought the drawings (of paper birds and toy vessels) were more successful. Both exude the quiet, elegant beauty of minimally ordered symbols representing "journey" and the irrevocable relationship between Cuba and Spain.
Castagliola collaborates with Lorca by using the poet's words and titles as verbal launch pads. In one of her best works here, the remarkable oil painting "Senos de duro esaño" ("Bodice of the Moon"), she started with the idea of the moon and death, continuing symbols in Lorca's writing. Only after finishing the bodice and industrially hued, flouncy skirt did she recognize that she'd subconsciously reflected her own psychological state of mind. Purporting to communicate the death of Lorca's sister in visual terms, it's also very much Castagliola herself: proud, powerful, saucy; soft and quiet yet charged with magnetism. When I guessed that this was a self-portrait, she agreed. But she also revealed — with poignancy and pride — that it represents her bout with breast cancer. It was her first painting after a mastectomy.
In light of this, "St. Sebastian," his body pierced by arrows, becomes a logical companion piece to "Bodice." Though such personal information remains beyond the canvas, once discovered it imbues the surface with the wonders of art and the creative spirit. From life to remembering Lorca to self-revelation. A sublime aesthetic path.
Gulf Coast Museum director Ken Rollins, who continues to reveal his own visual taste, also organized a solo exhibition for Cuban-born photographer Randy Batista. It's a fitting contrast to Castagliola's work. Ironically, Bastista's small black-and-white gelatin silverprint documentary photos — truly studies in realism — are equally packed with symbols, though unstaged. During trips back to Cuba to visit relatives, the Gainesville artist records the enduring spirit of his people. But it's impossible to ignore the symbolism of window bars partially blocking an old woman's view, or an old-model car stored in an interior space burdened with illusions of past grandeur. They're all trophies of better times. It Takes a Village
Brad Cooper Gallery's 17th anniversary exhibition features 10 international artists from 10 countries, a number of which have shown previously at his longtime Ybor venue. However, I was pleased to be introduced to the work of several artists that I hadn't seen before.
Despite the international flavor, I was less struck by the difference of their nationalities as I was by cohesive qualities marking one gallery owner's personal selections. On the whole, the pieces worked well together.
Linear quality, though not absolutely pervasive, is one common denominator. In American artist Larie Wickenkamp's oil painting "The 7th Red Stick," red, yellow and green "sticks" seem empowered by a secret cryptic language that evokes a fascinating narrative between inanimate objects. Dominque Labauvie of France presents graceful, meandering, three-dimensional drawings and metal sculptures edged with narrow flat surfaces. They remind me of how Brice Marden's simple wandering lines might look if they had escaped their enclosing frames and broken into fragments.
I liked the mixed-media work of South African Rose Marie Prins, now a professor at Eckerd College. Her small, elegant wall-hung pieces with encaustic-like surfaces reveal linear components exuding quiet intimacy. This sensibility is echoed nearby in the fine, softly hued painting by Korean-born University of Tampa professor, Posoon Sung.
P. S. Post Best ofs
If I'd had my druthers, two local artists from opposite sides of the Bay would've been included in the Planet's recent Best of the Bay edition. So, with your indulgence, and in a totally unorthodox post-"Best of" spirit, let's recognize them.
Had there been a Best Emerging Artist category, Edgar Sanchez Cumbas would have fit the bill. Sure, everything depends on what the definition of "emerging" is. In my book, it's an artist whose vibes are strong and whose imagery sticks in your brain. But why Edgar? Let us count the ways. First, he layers his canvas with pathos, joy, figuration and abstraction — all rolled into one luminous surface. His small paintings are popping up all over town — from Brad Cooper Gallery, where his talents were first recognized, to Covivant, to the classy MacArthur Galleries. He was also included in Tampa Museum of Art's UNDERcurrent/ OVERview 5. Need we say more?
Had there been a Best Gutsy Mixed-Media Artist category, Candace Shippnick Garrett surely would've been a strong contender. As if it isn't tough enough to make and peddle art these days, there are those few brave souls who continue to do so while laden with burdens that would make the rest of us shrivel up into little dust bunnies.
St. Petersburg's Shippnick is one of the most courageous artists in our part of the universe. Her unique sensibility (she assembles poignant objects and tchotchkes) is paralleled by her willingness to speak publicly about her long bout with mental illness, a condition that didn't stop her from acquiring a master's degree in fine arts at USF. Planet kudos to Candy.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2001.